ISO FileMaker Magazine

FileMaker Database analysis has been around since the days when FileMaker made its meta data available through its Database Design Report - or DDR for short.

The report, for as long as I can recall, has been available in the human readable HTML format and also in the machine language format of XML.

Various developers have always made use of this verbose collection of tidbits about a database, but none have made it as fast as FMPerception. This newly released database analysis tool is the fastest information tool possible for answering questions about FileMaker Pro systems.

If you have any type of question about what’s used where and how within your database, then the fastest answers will come from FMPerception. Its especially helpful when working on a larger system or working within a team and you want to track what others have done to the solution.

This video provides a walkthrough of how to use FMPerception and how you can integrate it into your everyday development workflow.

FileMaker 15 was released on May 10th 2016 and includes a few key new technologies.

While much of the focus was on the mobile end of things, there are some speed improvements along with some convenience features which will make working in FileMaker 15 just a bit more enjoyable!

FileMaker Inc. released version 15 on May 10th. Did you miss the news? If so, then here’s a video which goes through the shortlist of new features.

One of the biggest changes was internal in terms of how FileMaker is saving cached data and layouts. FileMaker is now maintaining more resources after closing files so that opening a solution will seem MUCH faster. This is probably where a significant amount of development effort and dollars were spent.

You know, just laying in some ground work to make things perceptively faster for end users and developers. Now, if they will only give us developers control over local caching on a Layout-by-layout basis!

The number of new features, from a developer, perspective is pretty small. Unless you really need some of the new mobile related features, I’d say the biggest benefit to a FileMaker developer is the nicer colorful icons in Layout mode and the culmination of the various tweaks. Hopefully, the next annual release will contain a ton of wiz-bang features made just for developers. Regardless of meager feature additions, the developer perception when working on a remotely hosted database will be pretty significant!

Doesn't everyone want to build an app these days? How about you? Is building a native looking iOS app on your agenda? Wouldn't it be easier if your user's didn't have to learn the FileMaker Go UI and could simply tap your own custom solution icon when using an iOS device?

If the answer is yes, then your wait is over. In the first quarter of 2016, FileMaker, Inc. quietly released their iOS App SDK for FileMaker. This Xcode based toolkit enables anyone, with the willingness to learn, the ability to create a native looking iOS App using FileMaker Pro.

At its heart, you're simply wrapping the FileMaker Go product around your files and then able to run your app as its own process with its own sandbox. This becomes a big benefit when it comes to distributing your FileMaker solution.

All of your standard FileMaker functionality is still available to you. It really is a very empowering technical solution. You can rapidly build a very functional solution and be ready to deploy on any iOS device.

In this video, I walk through the steps necessary to get up and running quickly with Xcode and the iOS App SDK for FileMaker. You can start testing your files via Xcode's built in Simulator app within record time.

When a programming environment doesn’t offer you every widget you might expect to have, then some enterprising individual will typically create the solution you seek - somewhere.

If that person shares the solution with everyone else, and you can find it, then it obviously makes your life easier. You just have to find the technique and take the time to implement and understand it. Anyone can simply copy and paste the pieces to a puzzle, but understanding how it works it what makes it possible to adapt, modify and abstract from what you learn about the solution.

In this video, I showcase a technique file from a fellow FileMaker developer named Charles Delfs. He implemented a number of creative twists on a popular technique of being able to offer users with the ability to sort portal rows by simply dragging them in between each other.

If offering this feature to your users creates any degree of value, then make sure and let Charles know about your overwhelming joy at him having taken the time to refine and update this popular technique.

FileMaker 14 was released on May 12th 2015 and this release was made for developers!

This video provides an high level overview of all the major new features and updates to FileMaker 14.

Created in conjunction with Tim Dietrich and his wonderful blog article about FileMaker 14

Personally, I'd never worked with any of the deep analysis tools too much because most of my own solutions are well understood in my own mind.

However, when considering what it must be like to dig into someone else's solution, I seriously can't imagine working without a tool like InspectorPro 5.

Vince Menanno has been working on this type of product for well over a decade if memory serves me right. This means he certainly knows his stuff and it shows within the comprehensive coverage that InspectorPro 5 provides.

While this video is a long one, at well over one hour, just knowing what you can find out about your own FileMaker solution is very enlightening. Vince could have gone longer showing me just how much information InspectorPro 5 can provide about your FileMaker solution!

FileMaker Pro is such a wonderful environment for being able to rapidly create software which is extremely powerful and functional. The fact that the database is just there, built-in and available saves an enormous amount of time over other environments. This applies to many aspects of the environment.

When you combine the ability to interact with the world’s greatest source of information distribution, the Internet, then wonderful things can happen within your solution.

In this video, I show you how to store and retrieve some of your content from the Internet. The latest trend in freely available services is something which any FileMaker developer can tap into.

Using the free version of the source control platform GitHub, I show you how you can store all kinds of information on the Internet which may be used within your FileMaker solution dynamically. Whether you’re simply storing help content or storing navigational control directly on your own FileMaker Server, knowing how to take advantage of dynamically loading content is a key piece of knowledge.

FileMaker 12 introduced a totally new landscape for layout design. Along with the new way in which objects are represented, was the new way in which a layout was defined.

We now have this offscreen area of a layout. It's a convenient "storage area" of sorts. Where you can store "in progress" layout elements and documentation.

It doesn't stop there, however. You can include a lot of things which contribute to the actual logic of how your FileMaker solution functions. Take layout script triggers for example, or even portals themselves. When you leave a given layout, your portals reset and triggers may fire, which you may not want. So the best solution to this problem is to simply keep some things offscreen that would otherwise be onscreen.

This video shows you a variety of useful tips which take full advantage of the offscreen area of layouts. Looking to learn more about killer FileMaker development? This video won't disappoint!

Having recently arrived at the need for a syncing solution for a pro bono database, my options were pretty much limited to “create your own” or use what’s free.

It turns out that FMEasySync, from Tim Dietrich, is very robust and powerful syncing solution. In fact, it was awarded the FileMaker Excellence Award for FBA Development of the Year in 2014 by FileMaker, Inc. It has also been integrated into a few of FileMaker’s own solutions, such as the Devcon Speaker Proposal database.

There are a number of developers using the solution, and its attention factor is on the rise.

As with all solutions and techniques created within FileMaker, the integration process is what will take you the most amount of time. The first time takes the longest, and once you’re familiar, you can typically reduce the time by quite a bit.

My problem has always been opening the source files, then figuring out where to start and what to do next. The answer to that problem has always been a step-by-step document.

Well, Tim provided that on his web site, but, I wanted something easier - and faster. So, with a small investment of time, I created a new tool called fmRecipes. It uses the freely available Base Elements plug-in in order to work with all the various copy and pasteable code. I reduced the amount of time for integration by quite a lot and can now integrate FMEasySync in record time.

Watch this video and use the fmRecipes database (available to subscribers) to quickly integrate FMEasySync into your own solution!

When first starting to use FileMaker, the templates you’re exposed to may impose certain conceptual limits on how you use the various areas of FileMaker Pro.

Take layouts for example, you use a form view to enter data and list view to view a list of options you can choose from.

There are, however, aspects of each of these areas within the application that lend themselves to abstracted uses. While List View may be used most of the time for viewing a list of data, this isn’t forced upon you.

FileMaker’s layout parts are simply parts of your display area which can be used in creative ways. In this video, I showcase how I’ve used the body area of a List View in order to maintain statically positioned Header and Footer areas while treating the body as a single form view.

There are also creative ways to use Sub-summary parts by conditionally showing or hiding them as desired. This is commonly called “Sorting on a garbage field” - or, at least I’m calling it that.

If you’re looking to expand your creative thinking with how data can be displayed within FileMaker Pro, then this video will certainly have what you’re looking for.